


Into the Woods

by AitanaTheFangirl



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 09:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4783115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AitanaTheFangirl/pseuds/AitanaTheFangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Link goes to the forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Woods

One Summer’s evening, a sunny day coming to a close, a young mother gently rocked her infant boy to sleep, singing to him.  
She sang of legends, times long passed, of darkness and despair filling a world and a Hero to banish the shadows. She hoped the message would give hope to her boy in the world someday.  
He was beautiful. The setting sunlight played in his golden hair, making it seem to glow. He was strong, too. She knew that in his day, he would do so much in the world.  
Her singing stopped as she heard battle breaking out in the village outside the tiny cabin she shared with her husband and infant son. Metal clanged on metal, and she heard shouts.  
Her husband burst in, breathless. He had a bleeding cut over his right eye and a sword in his left hand. “You have to go. Take our son and go. There’s a full on battle outside. If they find you hiding, they’ll kill you both.”  
“But I can’t leave you here. There has to be another way,” she said.  
“There isn’t,” her husband said. “I’ll fight them off you. But you have to promise me you’ll run. Even if I stay behind, you don’t have time to look back. And don’t come back until you’re sure it’s safe.”  
She embraced him, a tear running down her cheek. “Just know I love you,” she whispered in his ear.  
“I love you too,” he said, just as an earth shaking rattling shook the house. The baby began to cry. “Out the back door. If I stay behind, I’ll meet up with you.”  
She took off. The village was in chaos. Men with swords faced off the nameless army. Arrows flew and houses were burning.  
She winced as something razor sharp with enough force behind it to knock her over hit her side, the force of her fall causing her baby to cry louder. It was an arrow, and she was bleeding. Hard. She couldn’t run with it, and each moment could cost her and her son’s life. She grimaced as she pulled it out, and her vision swayed. She shakily got back to her feet and continued to run, the world dangerously teetering with each step as her side screamed with pain.  
She took off toward the forest, a place she’d heard legends about, where children were cared for under a guardian spirit known as the Deku Tree. Her boy would be safe there.  
She didn’t know when she cleared the village, her wound throbbing painfully with each step.  
In her haze of pain, she thought she saw trees. She was close. The baby howled at the treatment, the bouncing ride, etc. We’re almost there, my sweet. You’ll finally be safe.  
She collapsed on a bridge. She smelled trees.The forest was mere feet away. Her baby cried and cried. But she was too weak to stand from the pain and loss of blood. Tears of pain from her side and sorrow for leaving her boy alone mixed with the sweat on her face from the exertion of running, wounded, with a baby boy.  
In her haze of pain, she thought she saw an angel. But it was only a young girl of the forest, her hair the bright green of sunlit leaves. She’d heard the baby’s cries. The girl saw the blood on the bridge and its owner laying in it, unable to move any farther, holding a squalling baby. She knelt on the bridge, seeing that there was nothing even the forest’s magic could help.  
“Please… Take him,” the mother begged, holding the baby to the girl, little more than a child.  
The girl took the baby, looking into his deep blue eyes. “There, there,” she whispered. The cries faded into silence.  
“He likes you,” the mother whispered weakly. “Take care of him. His name is Link.”  
“Don’t worry. The Great Deku Tree will keep him safe,” the girl promised.  
The mother smiled, happy her little boy was in good hands. She closed her eyes and died there on the bridge, leaving the tiny girl with a baby in her arms.  
The girl paid her respects to Link’s brave mother and stood, carrying Link into the forest. The other children questioned her as she passed them.  
“Saria?”  
“What’s that?”  
She didn’t even look up from the baby in her arms.  
She walked until she got to a spacious grove, a gargantuan tree situated in the center. “Great Deku Tree…” she began, and told Link’s story, how she went onto the bridge, hearing him crying and seeing his wounded mother on the bridge, how the mother pleaded for her to take the child, giving her nothing more than his name before dying on the bridge. “What should I do with him?” she asked finally.  
“I sense a great destiny for him,” the tree said. “We will raise him here, as a Kokiri. I will leave him in your care.”  
The girl nodded and stood to leave.  
“And Saria?”  
She turned, waiting to hear the Deku Tree’s next words for her.  
“Don’t tell the other children his story. No use scaring them. This forest is a haven for all who come to stay.”  
Saria nodded, taking her new ward back into the grove where the children lived.


End file.
